Twitter and Facebook – Exhibition grounds or dear diary moments?

Over the last three years, I have complained enough and more about the penetration of social media into our lives and about the creation of parallel universes which in some sense are lowering the sensibilities and emotional quotients that an individual would have possessed, if old-schooled, for the lack of better metaphor. Today perhaps I’m not that aggressive all though not much has changed ideologically over the last two years. Nevertheless, I have also come to terms with the fact that I was only trying to delay the inevitable and I can't keep away from it for long; Has been almost two years and two quarters to this day since I joined Twitter. What I have come to learn over the past 2.5 years is what beautiful playground Twitter is! More so than Facebook because of the restrictive yet provocative nature of it.

But the nagging questions for me over the past few days have been… Are we going downhill with too much penetration of social media into our lives? Or is it still within our reach to control how much is too much and draw a line between what is real and what is perceived otherwise? Has the social media changed from being elitist to promoting elitism? I’m not gonna talk about the impact of social media by itself all though it might as well still play the background score. I’m neither a social media activist/consultant nor do I subscribe to Mr.Kapil Sibal’s school of thought. Hence I’m only gonna try to make the readers think, but not force my conclusion on you all.

I vaguely remember a write-up from my dad a couple of years ago about social media being elitist (couldn’t scout for the link, apologies!) which I have never really agreed with. If I could classify the Post-Facebook and initial Twitter phase to be “intermediate”, I would say, during the intermediate phase social media to me was a playground where people let out their voices (sometimes even their frustrations) which wouldn’t have been heard ‘so easily’ otherwise. And I believed (think I’ll hold on to it to some extent even today) that the curiosity to try the new form of it, be it Facebook or Twitter had brought people in it. And the seductiveness of the individual compartment got people stuck and still does.

The important question to me today is not about the control we exercise (or could?) on the social media or otherwise. Its about how not superfluous (or how much?) it is to us? It has made some of us celebrities (Twitter for sure did) and its also kinda given us a platform to let out our private egos on public spaces. Emerged thinkers, exhibitors as well as ‘followers’ (Again if I could naively classify them into three classes). A new interesting yet intimidating school seems to have emerged – ‘that people don’t fall ahead of you but you fall behind’. Hence all of us to some extent have chosen consciously to not be regressive, even if we were before. How much its impacted our daily routine is still beyond comprehension!

So what do these followers, facebook likes and shares mean to us really? In some sense we are being rewarded for our contributions by the social media in what little ways it could. But are these contributions dictating our participation and the ‘type of’ participation (if I might say)? For instance, if two or three of our consecutive posts on Facebook got some 40 to 50 likes, are we consciously trying to live up to those standards with the ones latter, which sometimes could be a deviation to how we would have behaved in real? Does our participation decrease with the decrease in the activity concerning us? If it does, are we simply falling prey to exhibitionism? Twitter for instance, has made a lot of celebrities out of us, so it is no longer a dear diary moment. Are we in some way taking it too seriously upon ourselves to entertain our followers forgetting the fact that they are just our followers but not fans? Has elitism slowly caught up with us? In some sense, we are slowly getting used to the dysfunctional school of expressiveness all though we might not be conscious of it. With due respect to those who use social media the way they want to use it, I’d still go so far to say that the rat race of falling ahead and behind has caught up significantly with us, thanks to these Twitters and Facebooks – add anonymity, confusion and hype to it as well.

All though I must say, these virtual circle of friends and followers inspite of the anonymity are not quite as virtual as they were seen to be years ago. I have been friends with quite a few whom I’d met on social networking sites for about 6 years now, longer than I’ve known some of my friends that I hang out with on a regular basis. I know its a very subjective thing and is impossible to conclusively say yes/no to. But one thing is for sure – Today social media is not a parallel universe, it is as real as anything is. /p>

And this post is going to be synced with Facebook and Twitter, so there you go – the intellectual hypocrisy meme. Or perhaps, I’m one of those who genuinely use social media for knowledge sharing. Or let me say, degree and purpose of it is the difference.

Thoughts and learned opinions welcome.

P.S – Pl. excuse the typos if any. I have typed all of it on my mobile

The Importance of Closure – 3

Aristotle once said, “As you age, the world becomes a much better place to live in”; Or I may have just made that up. Anyhoo, this might sound incredibly in sharp contrast to all the Facebook ranters who go, “How being a kid was fun” but trust me, it is so effing NOT true. When we were young, our problems were simpler; to finish our homework, to sneak out and play or to eat a candy when your mum and dad aren’t watching you but none of us managed it consistently. In short, we sucked. As we have grown older, our problems sure have become deeper but we are more equipped to handle ‘em. The only problem that remains however is our deep seated need to end something to start something afresh.

In the past in The importance of Closure 1 and The importance of Closure 2 I talked about the importance of closures and the need to have an emotional closure on things that are a far cry. However, I have of late come to discover that having a closure is not all that necessary and often times in our desperate attempts to seek closure, we might ruin things that have stood the test of times and would’ve lasted longer if not for our emotional need to fall pray for the ‘ Oh let me move on’ trap.

Once again, I’d like to redefine what I mean by a closure. By closure I don’t mean covering the wound to stop bleeding. I disagree with that notion of closure. I understand that, when confronted with an unsatisfactory situation, one must move on. However, doing so is often, in real life, a matter of accepting the existence of loose ends. The notion of “closure” that’s mostly used (or misused?) of late, seems to me to be akin to the notion that life should be like a fairy tale. The cult of “closure” often manifests itself as an utterly self-centered demand for attention and gratification from others. Among the most dedicated seekers of closure are all the stalking exes and revenge-bent gangsters (whether inner-city or international) destroying everyone’s peace because they demand that the world stop to serve their desires.

This is the exact kind of stuff I’m gonna talk about now. The desperation to seek a closure may have unforeseen repercussions. I’m not saying, nobody should ever have a closure on stuff. Of course, a closure for what it is worth would help us to let go of our past and provides us an incentive to look forward. There’s some time where everyone needs an emotional closure, to deal with a break-up, a let off or a “self” let down or anything else, for that matter. I’m only trying to say one should try to find a closure within.What is the point of seeking a closure from someone at the end of a strained relationship? If not to strain it any further? What every association or relationship leaves us with, is memories; Memories that’ll be etched in us for eons to come. Memories that will always bring a big smile on our face and some incredible moments that we’ll be proud of for the rest of our lives.  And its better we don’t ruin ‘em for good. And associations and relationships have this funny way of opening up many facets. By that I mean, say one facet of it is ruined you can always switch modes and go back to that facet of a relationship which has yielded you nicer dividends.

So if relationships have to be preserved and if associations have to be withheld, its best to seek a closure within, instead of hoping for a fairy to come and get you off it. You just have to back yourself up and get on with stuff. There is one trick here. Always live in the notion that, “I am the protagonist and this is my story and like all good tales, everything is going to fall in place and end well”. And that’ll give you enough motivation to back yourself up and live life in a better way instead of running behind stuff to seek closures on things that neither you nor any other can guarantee to have happened. A closure for what its worth, should get you off a strained relationship into that facet of it, in which you are most comfortable rather than pushing you out off it.

If you don’t get this, you’d automatically deserve an entry into hall of shame. Period.

Be a nice person

What does it take to be a nice person really? Is it about helping people around you? Is it about doing things on time? Or is it about not being rude and harsh to the world around you? Its a hard thing to tell. But funnily, so often we hear people saying, “Oh such a nice person”. So it is obviously not rocket science, right? So I have made an attempt to jot down some ground rules which will at least give an impression to others that you are a nice person.

1. When you have to say “screw you”, always smile after that – Most people dont get sarcasm and your ass is saved
2. When you want to borrow money from someone and not pay back in time, tell ‘em how awesome they are. It will work half the time, and other time, they obviously will know they are dumb.
3. If you are an Indian, like and may be sometimes even worship, Sachin Tendulkar.
4. When you have relatives at home, you don’t send ‘em back inappropriately. the way you do that is by borrowing money from ‘em time and again.
5. If you want to yell at someone or make fun of someone, do it on their face and immediately tell ‘em, “If it was someone else, I wouldn’t even be thinking to do it. You are such a sport” – That will work, almost all the time.
6. If you don’t want to follow someone on Twitter, create a list and put ‘em there.
7. There is no right age or time to tell people that they are delusional and imaginary. The best way is to scare ‘em with your weird philosophy.
8. Philosophy might not pay you, but it will sure scare the crap out of your friends. And makes you look cooler and wise (which none of us can ever afford to be, if otherwise)
9. When someone asks you, “What do you think?” and you want to say, “You suck”.. just say, “Yea ok”.. Any dim-witted person would understand it, if they dint, well they don’t even deserve to be called dim-witted.
10. When you make jokes on someone on Facebook, make sure they can’t read it. Privacy settings are there for a reason.
11. If you accidentally yelled at someone or had a huge altercation, just go retweet ‘em or like their Facebook statuses.It will work most of the time.
12. You might also want to like/share/tweet this post.

The neverending battle between Money and Morality.

Through out my formative years in school, college and university I had always been told by professors and wise men alike that being an Engineer is not as tough as what it is generally conceived to be, in the plebiscite but being an engineer who is morally right is what is most challenging. I vividly remember those days where I used to ask myself – “What the hell is wrong with these guys? Where is morality here? And what is the big deal about preferences and priorities? You study and you get a job, its that simple, aint it?” – Well turns out, it isn’t.

All of us who like to label ourselves engineers (or for that matter any professional person) carry along with us a baggage, known as ranking system and an undying urge to top the class or group or whatever other thing that we have gone out with or have been a part of. This creates so many problems, a) we find ways to climb up the ladder, even if it means pushing down some other irrationally b) we always like to think that superiority comes through academic reports and later pay cheques. c) the sense of satisfaction is forever lost; and finally the most important of it d) In the struggle between morality and money, the latter always wins.

To elaborate, for most of us, all that matters after our education is the amount of money we earn. Sure its not really bad, but the intensity of it and the desperation to do whatever it takes to get there is what is killing. I would be lying if I said, I have not been there. All of us have been there, some of us have just learned how to not get tied up in that vicious zone while the rest of us haven’t. And what is just more depressing is how we are judged by the society by the amount of money you earn or the brand you work for; not a great quantifier that, understandably of course. Most of us don’t know what we want by the time we start with our undergraduate education and by the time we realize what we want, the time would have gone by and we try to keep up with where we are and what we are, instead of chasing our newly discovered passion; because we want to always play a safe game. And that is what is depressing. In pursuit of safety what we compromise upon is something that might have gotten us eternal satisfaction and joy. So we become basically dimensionless after a point and start to think, “Well, now that I don’t like it, let me at least make some money” and once we fall prey for that, everything else takes a back seat. And let’s not talk about “Oh my cousin is an engineer and later went to IIM and he makes money, so I would do that too” kind.

“So yea, what is the big fuss about morality here? Hasn’t it got to do with the system; that thing we always like to blame?” – Well the fuss with morality is that, while chasing something that isn’t really our dream in the first place what we tend to do is be a pushover and a hindrance to people whose dream is actually that. For instance, doing something that is not our cup of the tea in the first place kills the quality. With all due respect to our bragging rights and typical HR answers that go like, “Oh I’ll learn anything”, “I’m a great learner” “Oh you don’t know sir, my best achievement is I have learned to swim through Indian ocean twice”, it is still as annoying for us as, asking Micheal Jackson to not dance well or Indian cricket board to not mess up with their players. Its high time we let people who are best at a business to do it and we focus upon things that we are good at and that doesn’t include being a pushover or an arrogant brat, all though we are awesome at it.

Here, I’m not addressing people who switch their specializations for big bucks, so if any Engineer aspiring to be an IIM’er or is already one needn’t take any offense at it. I’m just trying to say, if you are good at it and if you enjoy to the fullest doing a job or being in a profession, do it, but just don’t be something or someone because you get big fat cheques and a no objection certificate from a girl’s parents. I’m not being judgmental here and I’m not saying something is right or something is’t. I am nobody to do that. I’m only trying to make people think that there is life beyond a villa and a BMW. Chase your dreams and your dreams alone and you needn’t make someone else’s dreams your dreams just because those dreams look and sound way more cooler, even if it is your parent’s dream. Period.

Why Mr.Hazare’s movement was flawed..

The whole nation is celebrating the ‘so called’ victory against corruption today. And one couldn’t help but appreciate and congratulate Mr.Hazare for showing to the rest of us that our voices could be heard, not just heard but could be heard potentially and for bringing in a sense of unity among all of us and reminding to us that, united we grow. But, as much as the appreciations are due, the whole movement to my conscience is primarily flawed. I don’t want to sound any cynical and draw people’s attention here; but as an ardent supporter of Electoral Democracy I couldn’t help but question the fundamental agenda and if I might go a notch further, the whole intensity of the movement.

Contrary to the media hype and the self-proclamations of Team Anna and to the [blind] belief of the majority, the movement hasn’t been held in complete saneness at all. Why does one have to fight for a ground and beat up people because they needed a place to protest? To see that come from the leadership of someone who is from The Gandhian school of ideology is baffling. Even if I decide to look past it and discount the ‘inception process’ of this movement, considering the fact that launch-pad is important for anything substantial to happen, hence the intensity – what is confounding to me is the whole revolution against the Political System treating as if it was something foreign and doesn’t belong to us. Partly the political system we currently have in place is also to blame for all that dirt it has successfully rubbed over it (with pride) all this while. But the tragedy is, clobbering the political system is not gonna solve anything, if anything its only gonna worsen what we currently have in place.

While Mr.Hazare has been praised extensively by the model village he’d built two decades ago, he and his followers should also remember that, often when you increase the scale, similar mechanisms that yielded success before, wouldn’t work if translated bit by bit. At best, they will serve as a model, a prototype on which the rest of the system has to be built. That’s exactly what Mr.Hazare has missed out on. I don’t call it democracy when you don’t allow a political party to take decisions and when you make your own rules and have your people listen to what you gotta say, though they might be path-breaking. That was exactly what happened at Ralegan Siddhi. He beat up people who were obsessed with liquor. Sure it proved to be affective at small scale but suggesting that you beat up politicians because they are corrupt is not going to serve anything. (Not literal beating up of politicians, but metaphorical). Ms.Bedi’s ‘Ghoongat act’ has epitomized the tragedy of the entire movement. So alright let’s take it their way – Say we removed all the politicians in place right now? But the country has to be lead by some person or a group or a system, be it Mr.Anna’s or Mr.Z or anybody else. Are we now saying that we are in safe hands just because the movement has been able to successfully rob electoral democracy?

Having a bill that supposedly helps us fight against corruption is entirely meaningless for someone who understands the bigger picture. Even if such a bill existed in hypothetical terms, we are coming back to square one again. Its so much responsibility on one team, there’ll be so much to ponder over for one team (one bill) that has started out to function just now, if you were to talk about corruption, electoral reforms, political renaissance and so on. How are we gonna make sure that the team is efficient enough to handle all these? How are we even gonna guarantee that this could sustain? And there is a single point of failure yet again, much like what Team Anna claim that the current system is. So where are we headed exactly? The problem here is most of these ‘reformers’ and ‘protesters’ don’t understand the political system. Its just not, black and white. Its not saffron or ‘not saffron’. To reflect upon the movement, its NOT, “Either you support the Jan Lokpall bill or you are corrupt”.

The advocacy and the emotion around Mr.Hazare’s campaign might have actually overlooked the complexity behind the entire movement. People have emotionally owned the movement, good thing that! But what bothers me or what is the issue of concern for me personally is if we are gonna lose these people in the whole ‘emotional’ battle against corruption because they have been led but haven’t naturally realized. Its the cynicism and the long endurance to the annoying system that has brought people together. I’m not sure how many ‘protesters’ – as they like to call themselves, know actually what the movement is for. All that they are concerned about is that they are revolting against a system that they feel hasn’t been doing anything to them in quite a while. Its only the frustration and cynicism that brought people together and they needed someone to act as a catalyst which Mr.Hazare fit beautifully and timing was impeccable. Its essential that we support the government and work with it rather than working stochastically.

Do we as a country proceed with settling our problems with electoral aid or do we take it to streets every time? If we were to do the latter, how many hours would we have to take in our week to run on the streets holding a placard? And how many of us who have actively participated in yelling out slogans today will come along every week to do so? It is not the contest of how many have followed Mr.Hazare or how many haven’t. What is important to react to is, what has this movement brought us to. The question we have to ask ourselves today is, what is the take away from the entire movement? The celebrations should not be about a victory against something or somebody, it should be about our voices being heard and should be about the good sense and spirit we are gonna carry with us forward and channel along, if we might! And for me personally, it will be fascinating to see how this whole ‘fight’ or the movement translates into electoral ballet during the next elections. Parliament is a vital institution for democracy whether we like it or we don’t and all these drama we have been doing in the name of ‘right to speech’, ‘right to fight’ wouldn’t make much of a sense, if the institution itself failed to survive.

My personal opinion, this! I’m not against the ‘Fight against corruption’. I don’t have a problem with the intention and its fantastic, the intention. I have a problem with the fundamental idea of achieving it. Like everyone, even I hope that we could work together for a greater cause and make this a better place to live for our future generations. For that we have to work with the government, not against it. Period.

Keep moving

The IIITB-post-farewell_convocation extravaganza has kinda settled in now. A lot of things have happened in the last 2 weeks for most of us. New jobs, new relationships, commitments and new responsibilities – some good and some not so good. But I’m sure all these new journeys that we have embarked upon will be as adventurous and as overwhelming as the one we have done together in the last 2 years.

Here’s to everyone…

Know no limits,
Know no fear,
Have hope, for it’s a good thing,
Have faith, for it’s a knowledge within the heart.

With a bit of compromise,
With a sense of morality,
With love and care for the world around you,
Move on, to bigger things,
Move on, to better things,
Oh mother’s child! keep moving.

The world will be yours!

Good luck!

New Age Wisdom

I have witnessed two extremely dramatic events in the last thirty days, one that left me distraught and other that left me with, no emotion whatsoever. I have chosen the word ‘dramatic’ because there is no other adjective to plug these two events together (you will know as you read on). But, one aspect that bore a seemingly striking semblance with both these events is the, ‘new age wisdom’ we fell a trap to while dissecting these and the kind of ‘real’ world we claim to live in, often making people wonder, if the delusional world… if there was one….was much better than this so called real world that we are a part of or we claim to be a part of. These two events all though, similar in the respect that the protagonists are no more, they are different from each other, in the sense, that both these protagonists preached and adopted different ideologies and had contrasting notion from each other, towards humanity and spirituality.

The first of these events is the demise of Bhagwan Shri Satya Sai and the other one is the death of Osama Bin Laden. I don’t mean to draw parallels between these two personalities, neither am I attempting any blasphemy by comparing the former with the latter. I am not intending to offend any of the followers of both, but only trying to project the levels of ‘publicity and attention frenzy’ we have stooped down to in order to gain acceptance and recognition.

After the demise of Bhagwan Satya Sai, almost all of the ‘new age thinkers’ – read as people in their early 20s, fresh college passouts wanting to be philosophers and desperate to be labeled as precocious and great thinkers, aided by media people and the Internet – have set out on a desperate mission to ‘expose tricks’ of Shri baba and have plunged in head along to prove that he was not a good human being, let alone, God. And there have been numerous videos on Facebook and all over the web with a unified mission to ridicule what the man had done to the world. I fail to see a point in disseminating these videos. All though I’m not a huge fan of him, isn’t it better we keep his status as it is but not try to pick apart on him? The one time we got unified, we got unified for a cause like this. What an irony!

I am not defending him. All I’m saying is, respect people who have done something to the world. In point of fact, loads of people all around India (Or around globe?) have been following him for long and loads of them have chosen to see good in him and have taken up to goodness, hospitality and humility. A man who had inspired millions of us (and still continues to even after his demise) to be good and to spread goodness deserves some respect, more than what is shown on him now. I understand the new age thinkers’ urge to spread out controversies and try and portray everyone as a wreck. Selling something under the name of, “Shri sai baba tricks completely exposed” is plain insulting to a man who had devoted a big chunk of his life towards spreading humanitarian awareness and goodness. I wont mind calling him God, if people were going to be good to each other from now on, by buying that notion. Creating a delusion that’ll enable people to co-exist in harmony is much better than letting people live in a crappy world by attempting to ‘make-up’ truth.

On the other hand, there is Osama Bin Laden. Time in it’s daily news today, went all out about how Osama was a dear person as a kid, how calm and intelligent he’d been, how modest and simple he had been, how and why he took up to terrorism and all that rubbish. And another news source today went a notch higher and drew ideological similarities between him and Gandhi (needs source citing, shall look up and put it up as soon as I can). To compare someone who hated mankind, killed civilians, women, kids and was madly in love with mass murders to a person who had used non violence, civil disobedience to outclass the colonial occupation of the British, is awfully reductionist and it’s pathetic how the new age thinkers label these insolent, inhuman thugs as some romantic layoffs. These are not the articles written by Osama’s most beloved followers or his family, these are written by world’s most renowned, if not respected, news sources. Would they dare to compare Osama’s ideologies with say some one from the west (Abraham Lincoln?), they wouldn’t. Because, the uproar from a statement like that would be irreparable. Let’s not even go there.. I’m not talking about the news sources being or not being kind to Asian heroes… My problem is more nominal. Can these news sources (and the geniuses who have written them) be a bit more educated and wise? Can these thinkers not distinguish between human and inhuman value systems? So much to sell your stuff? It’s disgusting to say the least. I now wonder, what is real and what is delusional? We pick on a person like Bhagwan Satya sai who had done so much to mankind during his span of life on one hand. On the other hand, we try to project the visibly non-existent humanitarian side of a mass murderer. We really have to get our priorities right.

However, in both cases, if anyone had triumphed it would have to be logic. It’s only logical that mother nature hugs you into itself as you grow older. It also sees to it that you die ruthlessly for your misdeeds and sins – Exactly how our two protagonists (Shri Sai and Osama) left respectively. Inspite of all this fuss, to the eyes of the romantic in me, poetic justice has been served. To me, poetic justice does not merely require that vice be punished and virtue rewarded, but that logic triumph.

How India threw it away!

Winning the ICC world cup 2011 is currently the biggest moment across a nation with 1.2 billion people. All though, it is a remarkable achievement, India, the nation and it’s people have thrown away a golden opportunity to be sport’s greatest ambassadors. This might sound ridiculous to some of you and some of you might even dispel this as some kind of a rebel theory. But, by not honoring Muttiah Muralitharan on the grand stage India have let down the honor bestowed upon them.

Spare a thought for this man with 800 test scalps and 530 odd ODI scalps, a man who has had to endure a lot of criticism for his uncanny action, a man who has given everything to the Sport, just like Sachin has and a man who undoubtedly is one of sports greatest match winners. And, he was conveniently overlooked. The media driven, money hungry, publicity craving Indian cricket high class have had time to announce about BCCI’s overwhelming monetary rewards but they have had NO time to honor a champion on his farewell. If they did, it would’ve been a marvelous moment, not just in sport but across various other fields and would have brilliantly exemplified, what respecting others is and would have made us globally more reachable to the rest. If some of you might want to question, “does it really matter?” – It does, these little things are the basis on which a nation’s respect would be built on.

If it was Tendulkar’s farewell match and if India lost it, the media would’ve gone on and on about how Indian team has never lived up to Tendulkar and would have most certainly eclipsed Srilanka’s glory. Unfortunately for Murali, their cricket board is not as rich as BCCI and certainly not as powerful.

To Murali, I bow to thee. Long live legacy!

How about Subjective Patriotism?

The hype and hysteria that has been surrounding India’s world cup campaign since it’s inception a month ago, makes me puke with disgust. With all due respect to the, “free spirited self-proclaimed” patriots, I think what a nation of one billion people are now subscribing to is fervent aggression. Is it really spirited patriotism when you bash another nation under the guise of “being loyal” to yours? Is it really spirited patriotism when you consider Cricket (I could’ve used the term ‘Sport’ but I want to be more specific) as the ultimate measure of supremacy? Does the theory of patriotism instruct us to not respect other nations at all? Does being loyal to a nation mean, disrespecting other nations? Is sport (In and around subcontinent) playing it’s part to exclude rather than include? Or are people reading too much into it?

I want to specifically bring out the India-Pakistan world cup semifinal here. Each nation flew into a kind of rage against each other while the whole media frenzy added fuel to it. And, it was more than a sport that was talked about. Even if it was sport, since when did sport become a measure of asserting supremacy? And, should there be anyone supreme first up? The animosity between these two nations could be traced back to decades ago. We have fought wars and there’s a sense of dualism in the people from both nations. Yet, I thought we came a long way to curb that animosity, to grow as individuals, to co-exist and co-operate with each other. But sadly, it’s not the case. We, the people from both nations, still have those insecurities and deep down we want to prove to the other that we’re superior than them and we’ll grab everything that comes at us in that process. In the disguise of being loyal and being patriotic, we have been advertising pure hatred and disgust towards each other, which is terribly disturbing.

I don’t get the urge to be patriotic during a cricket match. Most people still can’t make out the difference between being loyal and being patriotic and cheering for their nation. As much as sport has been trying to include nations, the nations inherently have been trying to exclude themselves from the rest. One should realize that Sport is just another lieutenant of the King by name ‘Nation’. It matters not, how much integral a Sport is to it’s people, it’ll always have a winner and a loser. And, accepting defeat gracefully and moving on is something the subcontinent nations haven’t been doing for eons now. We crib, we whine, we blame and then surrender to sombre. We care not, about those fellas on the field who give their 100 percent almost all the time irrespective of the win/loss math. We care not, about the other issues that our nation is currently withstanding. We care not, even if our personal lives are at stake. We need our nation to win and all our personal, civil and societal problems shall be put at bay for a while. All though, such loyalty is overwhelming, more than what is required of it, causes disgust, if not anything. I’m not worked up about Sport alone, but nonetheless the above case serves as a perfect testimony to our repugnant attitudes.

Freedom of Speech/Expression and Social reachability – The two things that have been long thought of as the essential ingredients for a nation to be democratic and developed respectively have become more of a bane than a boon. Facebook and Twitter have been the channels to propagate this divide and the expressiveness of free spirited, self proclaimed, patriots is only adding fuel to this emotional disturbance. Should we behold this sentiment any further, it’s only going to separate us even further. Often times, we hear politicians, calling for “nation building”. If we keep having a strong aversion to nations other than ours, we’d keep building our nation but would never live in a nation that has been built convincingly by it’s people.

I’m not advocating people to shut themselves up behind a closed door. What I’d like to propose is a theory – Subjective Patriotism. One that could help us overcome, some of these issues and bypass some of our behavioral troubles as well. It is our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but be one. By subjective patriotism, what I’m getting at is moral equivalence, the feeling of oneness for the mankind, yet standing up for our nation when it needs us. It helps us establish political stability and social cohesion. Avoid identity formation, avoid stereo typing. Unconditional and unreflective identity formation would degrade us even further both as individuals and as a nation. My notion of subjective patriotism is not to feel love for our own nation. It’s about standing up for our nation when it needs us and being tolerant to the rest of the mankind, always. There are always two sets of ideologies, one that we possess within ourself, one that are derived from the society and the environment around us. It is not always that they are coherent. Subscribing to any of these blindly, with little or no thought takes us nowhere. Subscribing to them, keeping in mind the altruistic needs of the society is what, each one of us as an individual must choose to do, should we be living in a place harmoniously. Rather than grabbing every chance to prove to the world around us that we are supreme as a nation, we should try to use these opportunities to show to the world around us that we can spare a thought or two for the whole of mankind. Now is a time to march towards global harmony and while we attempt to do so, these incessant remarks about other nations sure wouldn’t help us in the cause. The strength of a nation is not measured by what it is, but is measured by how it treats those nations that are less fortunate. So is an individual’s strength of character by how they treat the less fortunate ones. Solidarity people, Solidarity!

I might have made some strong claims here and some of you might even ridicule these claims to be opinionated beliefs or thoughts. And, I’d not be defending this against any of them. If atleast some of you could see a point in it and do your part towards attaining global harmony, the objective of this post would be met.

If we don’t tell our stories, nobody will

Too often we go through life on autopilot, going through the motions and having each day pass like the one before it. This is absolutely fine and comfortable, until we have gone through another year without having done anything, without having really lived life. This is absolutely and unequivocally not regrettable, until we have reached our old age and realize that we haven’t really lived life, but have merely existed. And, that’s when we start to look back on life with regrets and think about the “could’ve been” s and the “should’ve been” s. It’s always been the case with the Human race. By the time we understand the right things, we go past them.

Life’s just got one theory, “Live, don’t exist”. And a number of sub-theories and hypotheses stem from this very aspect of life. It’s only after we have made a convincing effort to dispel these theories, we come to understand that we have not really dispelled them but overlooked them or misread them. It’s not got to do with our improper understanding about a certain theory. It’s our compulsive urge to prove that, ‘we’re right and therefore, what we are doing is not to be questioned’. However, the autopilot we run on is different for different people. We become monopolistic in our very own way, sometimes even in the guise of individualism. Meaning, inspite of our life being monotonous and uninteresting, all of us still have a story that is different from one another’s. We have something that is truly and entirely ours. We can’t pull off a gene magic to change our lives now, but what we could do is to add some color to it. We should look for words to contain this epic – with our story telling potential.

Silence is not ‘always’ gold, neither is ‘speech’ always silver. But when presented with an opportunity to be expressive or go public, as an individual it’s our responsibility (literally) to go all out and express ourselves, tell our stories to the world and bring about a sense of understanding about what we really are, our tradition, our culture and our progressively growing sensibilities (if any), even our dreams, our fears so on and so forth. Until recently, I’d been under a strong illusion that there was no need to force people to apply themselves into doing something. I’d always thought, if a person was interested in doing something, they would be putting an effort to make it happen. I was under an impression that, things happened because they happened. Now I have kinda discovered for myself that not everything happens by sheer providence. We have to make some of them (actually most of them) happen. I’ve learned that, if I were to be a part of History, I should be putting an attempt to write a bit of it myself.

What I mean by this is, “don’t shut yourself behind a closed door”. A lot of us have moved from one place to another in our span of life so far and we have made continuous efforts to identify ourselves with that new place economically, emotionally as well as culturally, while retaining the value and belief systems imbibed in us; just about in right mix. We have to tell these stories. Infact I reckon, this is a very important step in identifying ourselves with a new setup. We should learn to go out when it’s raining, walk on the beach, hike through the woods, swim in a freezing lake, bask in the sun, play sports, or walk barefoot through grass. Our life shouldn’t be closed bundle of scent/[scarred] tissue. It’s like a package that has to be unfolded in public and by letting the world around us, know what we are and who we are, we would gain a place for ourselves, a place that is relatively unscathed of fears and discomfort. The least we could do to the world is to be entertaining. It’s a tremendous feeling to narrate what we have been through in life, to the world around us. That’s how we grow.

Most importantly, these stories will have to be real. These stories will have to be ours but not hypocritical; it’s our identity and we shouldn’t be ashamed of it. Because, if we don’t tell our stories, nobody will. For a lot of us, I believe that’s how we ought to rediscover ourself.